[421 B.C.]
The first treaty guaranteed to the Greeks, according to usage, the right to offer sacrifices at Delphi, to consult its oracle and to attend its festivals. It was agreed that each side should restore the cities taken in war; Thebes alone was to be allowed to retain Platæa, in exchange for which the Athenians would keep Nisæa in the Megarid, and Anactorium and Sollium in Acarnania. It was stipulated that “what was decreed for the majority of the allies should bind them all, unless hindrances should occur on the part of the gods and heroes.” All the allies save Corinth, Megara, and the Eleans, accepted these conditions. It was finally decided that peace should be ratified by an oath renewed each year and inscribed upon the columns of Olympia and Delphi, of the temple of Poseidon on the isthmus, in the citadel at Athens, and the Amyclæum at Sparta.
One of the articles of the treaty read that prisoners should be restored on both sides. When those of Sphacteria arrived, they were degraded from their rights as citizens, that the stain on Spartan courage might be removed by showing that Lacedæmon recognised no compromise with duty, even in the face of death. It is true that shortly after, these same citizens were reinstated in their former position.
The first of these treaties which brought temporary cessation to the ills the people had suffered for the last ten years, bore the name of the honourable man who had been instrumental in having it drawn, Nicias. Who had profited by all the blood that had been shed? Sparta had increased neither in strength nor in glory, while Greece simply retained her original empire, her people not for a moment renouncing the hatred that had armed them against each other. No side had gained, and civilisation had lost what ten years of peace would have added to the brilliancy of the Age of Pericles.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[54] [Over five hundred of the oligarchical party escaped to Mount Istone, and when the Athenian fleet sailed away proceeded to make frequent raids upon the democratic strongholds, till in 425 the Athenian fleet on the way to Sicily paused in Corcyra and aided the people to storm Istone. The prisoners left to the mob were foully butchered and the oligarchical party annihilated.]
